POP Policy Change Regarding Foreign-Language Cards

[SD PokeMom]

Originally Posted by octillery49

On a side note I wonder if anybody who bot BET or POTF boxes will sue POP for doing this.

on what grounds?

OP's budget, after all, comes via sales of the cards THEY market, not from gray-marketed JPN imports. how was allowing JPN cards in the premier events *they* pay to put on promoting sales of the cards they produce?

not to mention the store owners who have had to listen to players talk about how they order JPN cards online rather than supporting the stores giving them a place to play in league or tournaments...

as a judge i applaud this decision. and good for OP to give 5 months lead time before the decision takes effect...

'mom

[Chairman Kaga]

Originally Posted by Jaeger

The other thing not being taken into account here is not everybody is a tournament level player. Casual players do have a much harder time dealing with translations.

But it specifically states that non-Premier tournaments and leagues (the "casual" crowd) are not affected.

Obviously something major happened at a Premier tournament some time back that forced this action. And yes, this has to have been brewing for a while -- they don't change these policies overnight.

[giligan]

i feel this is rly dumb i mean i have japanese cards Claydols Lv.X's and such and now they are not gonna let them be used? pop is being unfair on this one and now i dont have a deck ><

[meganium45]

Dude, you have a deck. This does not go into effect until September 1. Enjoy your deck until then, and, until then, just transition your cards.

Not too tough really.

I think this was a long time overdue.

Suing PUI over this? Really?

Did you not read the Japanese Box that states clearly: NOT FOR SALE OUTSIDE OF JAPAN, or some other such language?

Why wouldn't PUI restrict.

As a judge, and a deck checker, my job just got 100% easier.

Not in english...not to be played.

The price of decks just went up, sure.

Man, at least Japanese Deck Boxes are still legal!

Vince

[Bippa201]

Originally Posted by octillery49

Why? Are you being sarcastic?

No. I never buy Japanese cards. It's too much money.

[SD PokeMom]

Originally Posted by SD PokéMom

Foreign-Language Restrictions for Premier Events


Effective: September 1, 2009

you've got 5 months lead time before this goes into effect.

'mom

[eriknance]

This kind of stinks, but if you think about it...

They are giving us a lot of time to make the change. Like, if this change applied to this season, I would be really upset about it. Don't get me wrong, I've bought Japanese cards before as well and used them in tournaments, but I feel comfortable with the fact that this won't be effective until next season. It's still annoying given the fact that some cards are just sooo hard to get ahold of (Leafeon Lv.X? Cresselia Lv.X?), and many people buy Japanese boxes because they get more out of them. Maybe consideration will be given to the amount of premiere cards in each English box when the change happens, but I doubt it.

I won't quite say that this is an entirely bad move though. I remember last year when I played in Regionals I misplaced my translation for Cresselia Lv.X. My opponent, not being familiar with the card, had to wait for me to find the translation. It was a bit confusing for him, especially since I had other Japanese cards in my deck as well. And I've played against opponents who had entire card books with English card equivalents for translation purposes. It got a bit tedious when, just to know what a Buneary did, we had to flip through a book until we found the English card. And of course, I'm sure there were people who abused the whole system even further ("Yeah, here's my translation for the 'Dark Palm' Dusknoir"). Or, I imagine some people might have just made up stuff for Japanese cards they were playing.

I know it's really annoying for many people to make this change (myself included), but if it will make the course of the game go smoother, it sounds good to me.

[Stigma]

Originally Posted by Bippa201

No. I never buy Japanese cards. It's too much money.

LOL? They're cheaper than english.
People make me sad. My TO has been begging for POP to do this for quite some time, ever since a few kids bought japanese boxes and he freaked out and banned japanese cards from his store. He was ranting for quite some time about how he's going to go out of business because japanese cards are cheaper and look better, so he wouldn't sell many cards if everyone caught on.
I understand and I guess support the decision made.

[octillery49]

Originally Posted by SD PokéMom

on what grounds?

OP's budget, after all, comes via sales of the cards THEY market, not from gray-marketed JPN imports. how was allowing JPN cards in the premier events *they* pay to put on promoting sales of the cards they produce?

not to mention the store owners who have had to listen to players talk about how they order JPN cards online rather than supporting the stores giving them a place to play in league or tournaments...

as a judge i applaud this decision. and good for OP to give 5 months lead time before the decision takes effect...

'mom

If I spent $500 on japanese boxes to use the cards in tournaments, then they've wasted my money. That's the grounds. I've only got 40 dollars worth of cards in japanese, so I'm not going to do anything like that though.

[GregWebster]

I'm just gonna come out and say this to all of you who think they can sue Nintendo about this: As someone who has studied the law, you have no grounds to sue. POP is under no obligation to support cards they don't want to.

From a financial standpoint, it makes sense that The Pokemon Company in America would want POP to ban foreign cards to boost their own sales. HOWEVER unless they start printing all the cards that don't come over to America, there might be a problem here.

[Squirtle]

This is a ridiculous ploy to make money by PUI.

If they want America to stop using Japanese cards then market your cards like Japanese cards.

Japanese Cards are higher quality
More Holos per box
More LvXs per box
Better Ratios
They Shuffle better.

This is ridiculous. GJ guys.. no really. Awesome idea.

Now I can shove my 4 boxes of Pulse of the frontier and my 3 boxes of Bonds to the end of time right in the trash.

[baby mario]

It does make sense, but . . .

It makes cards harder to get. Especially when they release a set just before a series of tournaments starts.

And the people who will get the biggest benefit are the ones who sell single cards, more than anything.

[SD PokeMom]

Originally Posted by GregWebster

I'm just gonna come out and say this to all of you who think they can sue Nintendo about this: As someone who has studied the law, you have no grounds to sue. POP is under no obligation to support cards they don't want to.

From a financial standpoint, it makes sense that The Pokemon Company in America would want POP to ban foreign cards to boost their own sales. HOWEVER unless they start printing all the cards that don't come over to America, there might be a problem here.

why would it be a problem? if the card isn't printed/translated into english to begin with, it's not legal for OP...JPN cards with no english equivalent have never been legal for tourney play.

'mom

[Magnechu]

The cost thing is what gets me the most. Japanese cards are cheaper and you get more bang for your buck. Prices are gonna go through the roof, ugh.

[Kabutops141]

^^I have to agree with the post above. I dislike this decision. Just...wow. I understand why they are doing this, but now it'll be a bit harder to get cards needed. Wow.

EDIT: Double ninja'd

[GregWebster]

Originally Posted by SD PokéMom

why would it be a problem? if the card isn't printed/translated into english to begin with, it's not legal for OP...JPN cards with no english equivalent have never been legal for tourney play.

'mom

It's more a problem of perceived fairness and worldwide image of Pokemon by it's players than anything rules related.

If a japanese player can earn their invitation to worlds with a deck they can't play in said tournament, isn't that a little ridiculous?

EDIT:
Before anyone says anything, I know this was the situation before the change, but it still impacts the fairness issue in my eyes. I think that if anything, PUI should change to a release closer to Japans, with similar cards etc and then make it so that all cards are legal at Worlds.

Dont you think that having a universal release system for cards would be better than forcing other countries to comply to America's release schedule?

[ToysRUsKid]

It's past April 1st :( :( :(

[Squirtle]

Originally Posted by GregWebster

It's more a problem of perceived fairness and worldwide image of Pokemon by it's players than anything rules related.

If a japanese player can earn their invitation to worlds with a deck they can't play in said tournament, isn't that a little ridiculous?

They can use their deck. The rule is based on regions.


The only people getting screwed here are the people who buy japanese cards in an attempt to spend money because they don't have $100 to lay out for the best lv Xs right before a new tournament.

[SD PokeMom]

they've NEVER really been able to play the deck they earned their invite to worlds playing, because of format differences and release date differences between JPN and POP OP. so what's new?

'mom

[bullados]

As a Judge and an Organizer, I LOVE this rule within the United States!!!

My job just got infinitely easier! Just gotta worry about a single list of cards (reprints), and that list rarely changes.

You've got a pretty little Japanese card there? Tough. Sry, that's the way they're ruling it now.

I'm mean that way. Then again, my Cities started an hour late because of deck checks. I've seen many tournies start far too late b/c of deck checking problems. Anything to alleviate the time crunch with a low number of Judges is a good thing for me.

[Scizor]

This is unforutnate. I understand that this is likely a business decision aimed to create more sales for U.S. product, but still, we wouldn't be buying Japanese product in the first place if English cards were the same or better quality and/or you could get the same odds on pulls.....And 5 months isn't that long to make such a change. That's only a couple sets. I'm not a fan.

[Jason]

Thankfully, the only Japanese cards I have are the Mews...

And a few playable trainers.

At least it still wont hurt my country much AFAIK... probably only hurt one or two players....

But in Malaysia...it'll hurt them...alot.

So yeah, POP better make the rarity in the boosters the same for any future sets after RR (which I assume they printed already)...

[DarthPika]

This makes me really mad. Its really unfair to say that I can't use a card because its jpn. That's just stupid. The ONLY reason they are doing this is to make more money. Ha! You guys thought that the Holon engine cost a lot, or that Uxies are expensive. You haven't seen anything yet. Just wait till players see how much key cards like Claydol will now cost. This will REALLY hurt the game. Not only was it cool to be able to have cards from different countries, but it was a way to be able to build good decks with out spending way to much. I always thought that PUI care more about the junior dev more than the masters? Guess this proves it.

Bad move PUI. I hope this causes a lot of players to leave the game so you realize what a stupid move this was. Talk about an epic fail.

So, are we FINALLY going to have the same packs as the JPN boxes? If we do, I can probably live with this, but if not I will be VERY angry.

[Yoshi-]

If they'd do this and forbid cards that are not out that in japan, i'd understand it, but banning cards people already bought ? And like shadowguard said, I cant play in other countrys from now on.

~~~~

Yeah we are so mean because we buy japanese stuff instead of english, just because it gives you twice the ammounth of good cards for half the price. So we players really are to blame...
Are the players to blame that our displays are crap mostly and rarely even pay off ?
Why not just give us the same displays japan gets anyway ? The problem would be perfectly solved, players would get value for their money, shops would sell more cards...

If this rule comes into effect like that, I know for sure I wont buy a single card anymore.

[yoyofsho16]

Great, now that Uxie X I have that I've played in ALL of my decks since the season began is worthless. I never use all japanese cards, just 1 that I can't seem to get. I never had problems with translations, the deck checker just looked at me, said "Do you have a translation for this," I flash it, I'm dumb.

Pokemon was getting popular like it was back in the good old days. This is step #1 to the death of this game, just like Yugioh. The reason why the card prices in Yugioh SKYROCKET are because foreign language cards can't be played. Dark Armed Dragon is an easy to find card in JPN, it's worth like 30 dollars. Here, it's 500. Go figure.

I will quit this game I love if I have to pay 100 dollars for a Lv X just because I think it is the BDIF.